Silence stretched across the crowd as my heart beat so hard that I felt it in my ears. The only thing that could be heard was the wolves inside the arena pacing back and forth, snarling, bumping into each other, and snapping to get room.
The onlookers laughed. As if on cue, every single person snickered, including Cassian beside me.
For some reason, hurling insults, or even silence, was better than this. The laughing made me feel so small, I wanted to wither into nothing.
Was I completely stupid for thinking I could do this? As I eyed the group of trial contestants before me, I decidedyes. They all looked so strong and powerful. And each one carried deadly magic. Magic they would use against me the second they were allowed.
Then the laughter turned to cheers. They clapped raucously as if excited about the chance to see a magicless rat from the Dregs compete against the Elite.
I wanted to run home and cut this mark off my chest, but then I locked eyes with a white wolf in the center of the room. He was the only pure white wolf in the pack of them, with fur so silver it reminded me of moonlight, or of my hair. On his forehead was a black diamond splotch, the only hint of color he had. His yellow eyes were boring straight into mine.
My breath caught in that gaze, and something came over me.
Courage, defiance, pride.
This wolf was staring at me like he believed in me, like I was the only worthy person in this whole arena. It caused me to stand a little taller and tip my chin high.
The magistrate then went over the rules for the trial, and I listened carefully.
There would be three trials over three weeks.
Killing outside of each trial was frowned upon but not against the rules.
We would each have a chance today to walk around the weapons and choose one—or more accurately, as Corvessa said, it would choose us. Then we would stand in the center of the cordoned-off area that held the weapons and hopefully bond a wolfkin—ifthey liked the weapon that had chosen us, since it would be their reward at the end of the trial.
If we survived the bonding, we trained here in the city at Aerlyn Academy, a fortified training center with a residence hall here. I knew of Aerlyn Academy. It was also where they trained their magic users from age six in how to wield.
The morning before the first trial, we were to be shipped off to where the Arcane Trials were held outside the city, at the base of the Steel Mountains.Each week, the survivors would then be brought back to the city to continue training in Aerlyn Academy.
When the magistrate was done going over the rules, she dismissed us to have a private moment with our sponsor before we would each be called up to choose our weapon and bond ourselves with a wolfkin protector.
One by one, each contestant paired up with their sponsor and walked off to a side area that had small changing rooms. Cassian tugged the end of my shirt sleeve, and I began to walk with him, only just now putting together the fact that with his brother dead,hemust be my sponsor now.
He was sending me conflicting vibes. One second, he was lying to the magistrate for me, and the next, he was telling me not to speak and calling me a sewer rat.
I wordlessly followed him, trying not to touch any of the Elites that we passed.
“Smells like the Dregs are leaking again,” a woman sneered as we passed her. Her friends laughed, and then a male tossed another stupid insult my way:
“I didn’t know they let the rats out into the daylight.”
I noticed Cassian’s hands ball into fists. But he said nothing.
The insults didn’t bother me. I’d heard them my whole life; they were uninviting and boring. I kept myhead down and walked right into the small private room with Cassian. The space was about ten feet by ten feet, with a single locker at the back wall, a shower and toilet in the corner, and a medical table with some bandages and elixirs, probably for healing if I got injured. The second the door shut, Cassian threw his hand at it, tossing some kind of golden magic over the door. It splashed across the doorframe, bleeding like ink until it covered the entire thing.
I gasped in wonder. I wasn’t used to seeing magic like this on a daily basis.
“We can speak freely now, but outside these walls, you do not address me in any sort of friendly manner,” he told me. “I’m Cassian Draven. What’s your name?”
“Okay…” I hedged. “I’m Brynn Brighton.”
He nodded and began to pace the room, glancing at me worriedly. “I thought… I… what happened with my brother? What did he tell you?”
I hesitated, wanting to protect the man who’d given me this mark.
He shook his head. “You don’t understand, we only have a little time, andbothof our lives are on the line. My brother planned to sponsor his lover, Fiona Saltwater, but?—”
“Fiona! But she’s from the Dregs,” I gasped. And she was my friend. Sort of. She lived at the south end of the Dregs; we didn’t work together, but I liked her,and any time we saw each other, we spent time catching up. She was always generous with extra food or towels, or whatever she had that someone might need.
